MILWAUKEE — Bjorn Rogness always loved to cook, but never imagined he’d become a renowned chocolatier in Milwaukee.
The Door County native moved to the city to attend college at the Milwaukee School of Engineering.
“The entire thing happened by accident,” Rogness said. “My business partner David actually found an ad on Craigslist.”
The advertisement read, “start your own chocolate company” and was selling chocolate-making equipment. Intrigued, Rogness and his business partner bought it.
An engineer by trade, Rogness set out to revamp and improve the equipment. It started a long journey of researching and practicing chocolate-making techniques. They started to make chocolate for friends and family.
But soon, they started getting more calls and orders.
“When people started telling us they wanted to start ordering more for themselves, and they wanted to give it out as gifts, that’s when we knew we were on to something,” Rogness said.
Their business grew so much, they decided to open a storefront. Melt Chocolates, Ltd. moved into the Lincoln Warehouse in Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood in 2017.
Melt is known for offering beautiful, bright-colored chocolates with bold flavors. Their most famous piece is the Calypso Truffle, which blends mango, habanero pepper, Jamaican rum and milk chocolate ganache.
Rogness demonstrated how he operates the chocolate-making machines.
“I can actually control the tempering mechanism,” said Rogness. “It starts to cool the chocolate down as the chocolate circulates through the machine, and it actually gets cooled on the way up and then when it comes out of the nozzles, it’s the perfect temperature.”
Controlling every aspect of the chocolate-making process is not his only job.
As he made his way around the space, a machine he was wearing started beeping. That machine was a glucose monitor. Rogness is a Type 1 diabetic. He must routinely check and adjust his blood sugar levels.
Rogness said it’s challenging to balance. This obstacle parallels the delicate balance he maintains in crafting his chocolates.
“There are days especially when you are sick or not feeling well, in which, you can’t just do whatever you want,” said Rogness. “You can take as much insulin as you want, and it doesn’t seem like that blood sugar wants to come down, and some days are just anomalies, and it feels like you’re fighting against the entire world trying to manage it.”
Living with Type 1 diabetes has also influenced his commitment to creating preservative-free chocolates.
“It makes me more hyper-aware of food in general, and it really makes me pay attention to the food as well,” said Rogness. “So that’s why we don’t put things like preservatives in our chocolates.”
He said he wants to keep improving his skills and the quality of the product. Many don’t realize making chocolate is not his full-time job.
Rogness still works every day as an engineer. His goal is to always grow in each aspect of his life — as a diabetic, a chocolatier and an engineer.
“I don’t let chocolate define me,” said Rogness. “I don’t let diabetes define me. I have multiple passions in my life. I’m still an engineer, and I love engineering just as much as I love chocolate. I think I bring my engineering approach to my chocolate in how I develop my recipes and how I go about it.”